Documents & Reports

Human rights and social accountability (English)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the common features and linkages between rights based approaches to development and social accountability and suggest how social accountability initiatives can be strengthened by recognizing more explicitly the ... See More +The purpose of this paper is to explore the common features and linkages between rights based approaches to development and social accountability and suggest how social accountability initiatives can be strengthened by recognizing more explicitly the principles of the rights based approach. The first section of the paper presents an overview of both rights based approach to development and social accountability, and also outlines five principles of the rights based approach to development, namely: the poor should be placed at the center of the design, control, oversight and evaluation of the development projects that affect them; the institutions responsible for implementing development programs should be fully accountable for their actions; non-discrimination, equality and inclusiveness should underlie the practice of development; citizen participation and voices should be "scaled up" and linked with national and international policy processes and international rights frameworks; and, rights based approach should develop an active linkage between development and law. The second section analyses four specific cases of social accountability initiatives which have served as models for, or are directly supported by the Bank: the Bangalore Citizen Report Cards implemented by the Public Affairs Centre in India, the Malawi Community Scorecard implemented by CARE, the Justice for the Poor program initiated by the Government of Indonesia with support of the Bank, and, the construction of a "System of Social Accountability" for public expenditure management developed by the Government of Peru and supported by the Bank and other development partners.
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